Yiling LIU

PhD candidate in Chinese Studies, admitted in 2019
MA Folklore Studies, Beijing Normal University
BA Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University

My dissertation studies railway workers in a decrepit and ageing neighbourhood in Sichuan Province. The neighbourhood, a compound of railway work units (单位, danwei) and residential amenities, were established in the 1950s. Since the early 2000s, it has seen a series of railway institutional reforms. The decline of danwei provisioned care and the handover of the neighbourhood’s administration from the state-sponsored railway system to Community (社区, shequ), the grassroots agency of local government, has been significant parts of the railway’s reformative measurements. My research focuses on railway workers’ everyday life and care against a background of declining social welfare and thorny handover resulting from the power struggle between the railway and the local government.

Current Research Projects

Remedies for Transition: Railway Workers and Care in Post-reform China